


The Eraser

by Annie_seadragon



Category: Start-Up (Korea TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie_seadragon/pseuds/Annie_seadragon
Summary: This is a series of different scenes from Start Up, told from either Dosan or Dalmi’s perspective. The first chapter is an accompaniment to the scene in episode 14 when Dalmi visited Dosan at the Samsantech rooftop office, told from Dosan’s perspective. The second chapter follows on from the rooftop scene from Dalmi’s POV.
Relationships: Nam Do San/Seo Dal Mi
Comments: 35
Kudos: 49





	1. The Eraser

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic so please leave feedback! Special thanks to moonoreos for the wonderful encouragement and support!

As Dalmi casually reminisced about the whiteboard session years ago, Dosan’s chest tightened and a suffocating sensation took over. The memories of showing Dalmi his ‘real’ office and trying to reset the ‘Dosan’ she had previously known gripped him in a mental vice that was simultaneously a heavenly refuge. 

That night, he mustered up the confidence to show Dalmi his true self - hoping to fix her confusion by mystically redirecting any affection for the ‘letter Dosan’ back to him. After spending the night together dreaming about the future, he woke up to the glorious image of Dalmi sleeping peacefully beside him. A delicious hope of a day where this would be his constant reality engulfed his soul, infusing an unworldly bliss. He didn’t believe in the supernatural, nor was he religious but the intangible seemed possible for the first time in his life. As Dalmi’s beautiful eyes sparkled with inspiration throughout the night, he found every part of him ignited with an urge to bring her dream to life, fervently responding to her lighthouse signal with a spiritual intensity never felt before.

A few weeks before Dalmi’s surprise visit, Dosan was ready to announce his intention to stay in Seoul - offering to work beside her on the Tarzan project under the guise of picking up his missing jacket. The ransomware attack had completely jolted the ennui and bland pleasantness of San Fransisco, reigniting the embers of that rooftop night. He wanted to turn the misunderstanding into a reality once and for all, continuing their mapless journey as a team just like he had always intended. 

It was an understatement to say Jipyeong’s words in the elevator were devastating. Dalmi wasn’t his anymore - he coldly accepted that fact three years ago. His sole consolation for the past few years was a dim glimmer of hope that one day he could win her heart as himself, becoming the wings that would elevate her vision into life. 

Now this was no longer possible - all logic pointed to the inevitable. 

Dalmi had accepted Jipyeong’s ring. She had reunited with the ‘Dosan from the letters.’

Jipyeong was better than him and always was. His hands were not enough. 

Dosan was an imposter from the start. The rightful owner had claimed his place.

Their relationship was nothing more than a distraction before the main event.

He meant nothing to her.

He had been forgotten. 

The fleeting hope he felt that night on the rooftop was only an elusive and imaginary whisper. 

To confirm these undeniable truths blaring into his consciousness, Dalmi had refused to take his calls. From now on, any access to Dalmi would have to go through another. He couldn’t even stomach what Jipyeong was now - a lover - or God forbid - a fiancé. He had been cut out completely. 

The worst part was that maybe he was never there in the first place. 

********

As Dalmi calmly sat in the rooftop office, Dosan noticed something unmistakably different. She was still exquisitely beautiful - that hadn’t changed. The enchanting glint in her eye was gone though, replaced with a sensible professionalism and corporate polish that didn’t sit well with him. To his dismay, he sensed Jipyeong’s influence, making it impossible to passively witness what was lost to him forever. 

The casual way that Dalmi mentioned the rooftop night bothered him - acutely. How could something meaning so much to him be thoughtlessly reduced to a fleeting anecdote? After everything she had put him through, Dalmi had the nerve to ask him to work on his dream project while another guy lived his dream. He wouldn’t even be an imposter this time, he would be an irrelevance. 

The memory was now irreparably corrupted. He wanted nothing to do with any of it. Or her.

When he told her it took him three years to accept that she was not the person he loved, Dosan felt a sudden rush of hopeful confidence, mustering an uneven smile to show his sincerity.

But if they weren’t really in love, why did their euphoric moments of happiness feel so genuine? If they weren’t really in love, why did their separation induce such unspeakable emptiness? Dosan ignored these stray thoughts to focus on delivering an unequivocal farewell message to his first and possibly last dream. 

‘I don’t want to see you again’

Dosan knew as he uttered the words that he didn’t mean them. He desperately hoped that voicing them would somehow render them true. He was actually inspired by Dalmi herself - she would often bluster her way in uncertain situations to drive a course of action. Against his normally skeptical nature, Dosan desperately hoped his clumsy spell would materialise into reality. An eyes-closed wish. He couldn’t bear this much longer.

He knew he wasn’t only pushing her away out of anger. He wanted to preserve any remaining self respect so he wouldn’t feel like such a forgotten nobody. Deeming their prior relationship an illusion felt like taking back some dignity. If he wasn’t the person she loved, she in turn wasn’t his real dream. As much as it pained him, maybe it was time to accept that their relationship was based on a lie - rendering it invalid from the outset. 

Logically, this would explain why she forgot him so easily. 

The quicker he accepted this, the better for everyone. 

*********

As Dalmi’s delicate eyes glistened with tears and her fragile voice started apologising for what she had done years ago, Dosan didn’t know how to respond. Seeing her visibly hurt was frankly unnerving. Reflexively, he wanted to take everything back and soothe her sadness, the way he had enveloped her in his arms years ago after breaking the news about her grandmother’s blindness. 

He quickly averted his gaze until he heard Dalmi softly leave the room. He knew he hadn’t fully processed everything yet and he sat in dumbfounded silence, ruminating over the dissipating mist of her words.

He didn’t feel like he recovered any dignity. He didn’t feel any triumph in turning Dalmi away. He rejected her but why did he feel like the loser? Why was it so unsatisfying to turn the tables for a change? 

Dosan felt a nagging suspicion that Dalmi saw through his lies. Perhaps maybe, just maybe, she had done the same thing to him years ago on his birthday. No, that was unlikely he told himself as he swatted away any atom of hope. He was different now - scarred and battle weary.

When he finally looked up, Dosan saw the whiteboard car diagram taunting him about what could never be. Instinctively, he reached for the eraser to remove the scrawled fragments of his shattered goals. Stubbornly, the blue pen markings were indelibly etched - refusing to fade, just like the silent yearnings of his heart. 

Dropping the eraser, Dosan realised the laughable futility of his earlier bravado. 

Nothing he said to Dalmi was true. He still loved her. He still wanted to see her. He hadn’t accepted anything after three years - even now he would drop anything, trade everything to be the Dosan of her dreams. 

It was a fairy tale to imagine a bunch of aspirational lies would somehow become real by reciting empty words. An enchanted eraser that would remove his unrequited love and gnawing pain never existed - and never would. 

All he did was wound the only person he ever loved. And by doing that, he only ended up hurting himself and hating the person he had become...a Pyrrhic victory indeed for a dreamless and lonely future.


	2. The Jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a second chapter from Dalmi’s POV. Rather than writing about the same scene, I’ve decided to cover the events between the end of the rooftop office scene in episode 14 and the point where Dalmi seeks to find Dosan at his house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies everyone for the lateness. Given this was only my second attempt at fanfiction, I had a few edits and rewrites so thank you for your patience. I would like to continue this series so please leave some comments!! Long live Dodal!

Driving back to the office, Dalmi began to slowly process her conversation with Dosan. She wasn’t even sure how to describe it - devastating, perplexing, unexpected. There was a bitterness in his voice she had never sensed before and a foreign coldness chilling his body language. He could barely face her - it was though she was speaking to a frigid shell, the remnants of Dosan’s evaporated gentle essence. 

She intuitively knew what brought on this change - ignoring his calls after helping her all night on the ransomware attack, Jipyeong’s careless insinuation they were a couple, her shamelessness in asking him to restart their working relationship as if a nothing had happened. On top of that, there was probably residual hurt from the admittedly cruel way she had broken up with him on his birthday, hurling pointed falsehoods to reject him completely. 

Yes, I deserve this, she told herself as she remained seated in the Sandbox car park. 

I brought this on myself. 

I’m pathetic. 

As she banged her head against the window in frustration, a familiar presence interrupted her stupor. 

Jipyeong. Her mentor. Her protector. He was now a familiar part of her life - a predictable anchor that tethered her outlandish ideas and acted as her centre of gravity. Her recent prudence, risk aversion and sensible career trajectory were strictly cultivated under his careful guidance. 

They co-existed platonically and politely, permanently trapped in suspended animation - nothing more. What was holding her back from a chartered, safe course to her original destination - the ‘Dosan from the letters’?

The answer was waiting in her room, hanging inconspicuously in the hidden recesses of her most intimate belongings.

*************

After the night of the ransomware attack, she had carefully placed Dosan’s designer black jacket in her closet. Well-hidden, tucked away. It was her only tangible reminder of him after returning the baseball. Knowing he was shortly departing to the US, she agonised about the right time to return it. 

She didn’t regret pushing Dosan away years ago, knowing he was offered a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity - substantially better than her failed, inadequate self.

Every now and again, she would open her closet and pull out the jacket, caressing the delicate lapels. She traced his broad shoulders which had stood by her side at her most vulnerable moments, his sturdy arms that embraced her deepest suffering and his extraordinary hands that symbolised his complete support, infusing her with invincibility. She would only hold it briefly in front of her - just enough time for a wispy memory to gently float like a petal into her periphery. A scrap of his nervous smile. A whisper of him softly calling her name. A shiver of his large hands engulfing her own, radiating unconditional support to shoot for the stars with her outlandish ideas - reminiscent of her dear father. 

Now this jacket symbolised her final link to him. An emergency excuse to profess the truth, on standby for a day when she could redeem her ticket and make things right.

**************

During these past three years, Dalmi had re-programmed herself, projecting a resilient and positive front for the world. Investing everything she had to re-establish her career, she mechanically lurched day to day using whatever fragments of energy remained to keep her family together. 

The Tarzan project was the only remaining vestige of the ‘old Dalmi’. As she lay in bed exhausted from a full day of tirelessly upholding a facade, she often reminisced about their time years ago at the rooftop office. After that indelible night, she realised with certainty her heart belonged completely to Dosan, and always would. 

The spare hours that she dedicated to working up a viable business plan transported her back to this incandescent possibility - fulfilling her father’s legacy and leading her old team with Dosan by her side. Naming the project Tarzan was a subconscious way of manufacturing a link to his presence, a shallow pulse that would continue beating artificially in her life. It was also her (fanciful) hope that maybe the name would trigger a fond memory, opening up a possible reunification. 

Unlikely, Dalmi would quickly tell herself as soon as these unrealistic hopes flashed into her mind. Dosan would never wait for her after the way she had treated him. She didn’t deserve a second chance. She would then soberly remind herself they had both sailed on from their mapless journey together years ago. 

She needed to accept the bitter consequences - especially when Dosan was now cruising ahead solo in another part of the world. 

The jacket disrupted this familiar pattern. Regardless of his designer clothing or newly assured demeanour, after all these years he was still her reliable Dosan. Her source of strength at her weakest moments. Her comfort, happiness and pride. Despite their prolonged separation, Dalmi could no longer deny his unfaded presence in her heart and her undiminished yearning.

*********** 

‘I don’t want to see you again’

A few days since their last conversation, those words in particular scraped like shards of sand glass.

He deserved a better explanation. 

They both deserved a better ending. 

She deserved a chance to be heard.

After considering all the variables, Dalmi decided to make one final attempt to change his mind. 

She would do everything, offer anything, to keep him in her life. 

Maybe she could use Tarzan. If Dosan joined her start-up, she knew the self-driving project could take off and change the world. But this was more than a business proposition. She could survive losing a company - she had done so before. Permanently losing Dosan on the other hand... She couldn’t finish the thought. If he walked away one more time, she feared she would lose him forever. 

Flashing back to Dosan’s deadened expression as he said those harrowing words, Dalmi had finally tasted the palpable and excruciating pain he must have felt years ago. His adoring eyes, previously full of unwavering tenderness, had become unrecognisable dark, empty voids. She hadn’t just broken his heart that day, she surmised that she had also ripped apart his dream, his spirit, his hope. She needed to help him heal and fix this damage.

But more pressing than that, she missed him - desperately. Sometimes she would feel like she was submerged in a suffocating atmosphere of overwhelming loneliness, gasping breathlessly for escape. If she could just change his mind about seeing her again, that would be enough. 

She grabbed the jacket and knew what she had to do. She needed to go to his house and speak to him. She was the one who had pushed him away and it was now upon her to pull him back. She didn’t dare hope to win his love again, but she refused to end their story here, now, in this way.

Rejection no longer scared her. The alternative was undoubtedly worse.

The jacket was her final lifeline.  
Their last chance.  
She gripped it tightly.

This time, she wouldn’t let him go.


End file.
